Numerous attempts have been made to provide training aids for use in correcting various flaws commonly found in strokes executed by tennis players. Many of these training aids are intended to correct positions of parts of the body during the stroke, or to correct the position of the racquet relative to such body parts.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,392,650 to Hilton provides a hood with blinders, plus an indicator to show the tilt of the head. The hood is intended to teach a player to keep his eyes on the ball, while the tilt indicator is provided in order to teach the player proper head position. The Hilton device may accomplish its intended goals; however, the device would be difficult to use for any tennis playing beyond simple drills. In addition, it would offer little or no feedback to the player on the position of the racquet during the stroke, which is crucial to proper execution of the stroke.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,005,833 to Groveman et al. discloses two wrist bands connected by a cord. In this way, the wrists are connected so as to prevent excessive independent action during the player's swing. This in turn forces the player to turn his shoulders when making a stroke. As with the Hilton device, it would be difficult to actually play tennis with the Groveman device. Additionally, no feedback is provided to the player on the position of the racquet during the stroke.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,445,570 to Rodgers et al. provides a band for attaching to the forearm, plus a cord connecting the band to the racquet head. This is intended to force the player's arm and wrist into a correct position relative to the racquet head during the stroke. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 8,052,548 to Stanisic et al., and U.S. Patent Application No. 2007/0275796 A1 to Carter both attach the arm to the racquet with a cord and band arrangement. All of these devices are designed to force the arm and wrist of the player into desired positions relative to the racquet during the stroke. However, all of the devices would be difficult to play with, and would offer little or no options as to possible positions of the arm, wrist, and racquet during a stroke.
What is therefore needed is a training aid which is uncomplicated and which allows the player to easily play tennis while using the aid. Further the training aid would ideally provide useful feedback to the player on the position of the racquet head during the stroke, so as to allow the player to learn to control the racquet head for better stroke execution. Finally, the training aid should effectively perform its intended training function over a wide variety of strokes, and thus avoid limiting the player's stroke selection.